Broken
by meyerlemon
Summary: He really wasn’t looking for more people to rely on him for their survival and personal fulfillment.


Spoilers: Set after Reckonings/Reconnaissance/Revamp/Whateve r II, but in some weird universe where Sam is totally single, because, well, bite me.

Sam kicked her poor, defenseless bag into the middle of the living room. Then she flopped down on the couch, but that didn't do anything for her, so she stomped into the kitchen and rooted around until she found some weird fruit-flavored wine someone had given her.

She looked at it dubiously, but it had alcohol in it, so she poured some into a glass, looked at the amount, and poured in some more.

Gah! This was one of the worst weeks ever. Not only had her Doublemint Evil Twin tried to take over the universe with her crappy metal spiders of doom, Teal'c kept doing that creepy smiling thing, Daniel had vanished, and the General was being—

Sam slammed back the fake wine. She wasn't going to think about him. She was not.

Fuck, Sam swore. (Not out loud. She cursed a lot in the privacy of her own mind, though. Or maybe that was a recent thing. She was pretty sure she couldn't have been this frustrated all her life. It was unlikely that she'd have made it to- Sam counted birthdays, shuddered, and drank more wine.)

On one of the higher shelves of the bookcase beside the door, Sam kept a framed snapshot of SG1. In it, Daniel looked up from what looked like a broken clay ashtray but was probably some kind of key to the universe. Teal'c was looking on with stoic interest, and holding a tiny, high-powered flashlight in his big hands. Jack was watching them with a kind of amused detachment, and Sam was looking at Jack.

Sam kept that photograph to remind her of the realities of their relationship. And she kept it on a high shelf because she didn't want to see it every time she walked through the living room.

For one, it hurt. And for another, it'd been a long time since Sam needed constant reminders. She just wasn't that dumb anymore.

Sam looked at the snapshot again. In the photograph, her expression, looking at her CO, wasn't one of loyal friendship, although loyalty and friendship were there. It wasn't one of admiration, although that was there, too. It was—Sam hesitated to call it love, these days. She was uncomfortably aware of how little they knew of each other. But it was more than an infatuation. In spite of everything, it'd lasted for almost a decade.

For her, that is. That was the final reason Sam kept that picture in plain view. She was looking at Jack, and Jack didn't notice.

Sam reached for the bottle of wine.

Jack made it through about two linear feet of paperwork before giving up. He was just signing his name in what would probably, when an airman brought them all back again, turn out to be all the wrong places. He couldn't concentrate.

He hadn't been able to concentrate since they'd given him the big desk, though. He should be used to it.

He wasn't.

Jack knew he was a good field officer. He wore leadership like an old t-shirt: a little ragged, but comfortable. Men and women under his command knew, bone-deep, that they could trust him. He would never ask them to do anything he wouldn't do himself, and he didn't leave people behind, and all that bullshit that wasn't bullshit after all.

They were his kids, but not necessarily his friends. No matter how close he got to them, there was always the distance of command. How did you send a friend to his death? You didn't. So you were careful not to turn your soldiers into your friends.

And you couldn't have friends who weren't friends at all.

Jack had been thinking about Carter too much, recently. He knew how she felt about him. And few things were as tempting as just dropping everything and driving over to her house and taking her to bed, but in his blood, Jack O'Neill believed that it was an honor and a privilege to serve. And if that meant you didn't always get what you want, that was the deal he'd made.

Men kept their promises.

So he didn't go over to her house. And he tried to give her as much space as she needed to find someone who could make her happy. He ignored, as best he could, the sneaking feeling that maybe Carter wasn't going to find someone. That maybe they were each other's last best chance.

Jack didn't like things like that. He was responsible for a mountain full of people every single day. And, sort of, for the entire planet. And kind of, sometimes, for the human race as a whole.

He really wasn't looking for more people to rely on him for their survival and personal fulfillment. He didn't even own a dog, for chrissakes.

But still Carter looked at him with those big wide eyes full of trust, and Jack had hurt her over and over, and backed off what seemed like a million times, and he still hadn't managed to push her away.

He wished she would just find some guy and get married. They were never going to happen, and as clear as he'd tried to make that, she was still hovering around him.

He felt like he was stealing her youth. And that was bad. Because it was really important to him, for some reason, that Carter have lots of babies. (Maybe he could be Uncle Jack and buy the kids bikes or baseball gloves, or something.)

Carter still thought they had time to wait, if they had to. He knew she did. But he was fifty-five years old. He wasn't a young man. Hell, he wasn't even a middle-aged man unless he planned on living to a hundred and ten.

Fuck. Fifty-five was old.

Jack rubbed at his aching neck and pulled another stack of papers toward him.

Sam picked up the phone, dialed, and smacked it back down on the table. Again. She did this, when she drank. Which was probably part of why she didn't drink often. Sam Carter didn't want anyone to know that she was a drunk dialer.

She didn't even have the excuse of inebriation: she had a little buzz, but even she couldn't get drunk on two glasses of something with blackberries on the label. It just made her stupid enough to do things like pick up the phone and dial most of her COs direct line, and hang up before the call went through.

This wasn't one of the calls she sometimes almost-made about how, could she maybe come over and have sex with him, because seriously, nine years! She was a woman in her prime!

This also wasn't one of the calls she sometimes almost-makes about how he's a fucking jackass, and how dare he string her along for nine years! She was a woman in her prime!

This also wasn't one of the "I quit" calls. She usually only got halfway through dialing those, anyway. Even when she was desperately lonely, and kind of drunk, Sam was usually still pretty serious about her duty to God and country.

This call was simple and sad and mostly centered around Sam's desire to tell her CO that he had hurt her feelings kind of a lot. Of course, that wasn't really something she could tell him, hence the hanging up.

Sam took another swig of the wine. Her phone rang. Unthinking, she picked up.

"Hello?"

"…Carter?"

Sam instinctively punched the end call button and dropped the phone on the floor in front of her. He couldn't have known that she—had she just hung up on her CO?

"Oh my God," Sam squeaked. The phone rang again.

"…Hello?"

"…Carter?"

Sam squeezed her eyes shut. Fuck.

"Hello, sir."

"Carter, did you just hang up on me?"

"…Might have, sir."

"Ah. And before that, did you call my office eight or nine times and hang up?"

"Oh my God," Sam squeaked again.

"Carter?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you just say something?"

"No, sir."

"Okay, because there was this really high-pitched— Anyway. Did you call me?"

Sam stared at the half-empty bottle of wine. At the glass beside it. Her gaze drifted across the room, to the snapshot on the shelf.

She took a breath and shrugged to herself.

Fuck it.

"Yes," she said, before she could change her mind. "Yes, sir. I did."

"Okay," Jack said, sounding distracted. "Tell me what you need, Carter."

Sam couldn't say anything. It was so much harder to say these things out loud than when you were rehearsing over a glass of booze.

"Carter? Everything okay?"

"Yes, sir," Sam lied, out of habit. Something stopped her.

"Sir—"

"Yes," Jack said. Sam could see him, tapping a cheap ballpoint impatiently, waiting for her to get on with it so he could stop babysitting her and go back to his incredibly important administrative duties.

Screw that, Sam thought, and started talking.

"Actually, I'm not okay. Even less okay than usual. Daniel vanished, you realize that?"

"Carter—"

"I know you don't want to hear about it," she continued, "but who else am I supposed to go to with things like that?"

"Carter," he said, audibly annoyed, "things like what? Things like being upset about something bad that happened in the course of saving the world?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're running your own team," he snapped. "I can't hold your hand. Do you think I had Hammond on speed dial for when I was sad and lonely?"

Sam couldn't catch her breath. She felt exactly like someone had just punched her. She was quiet for a while.

"No, sir," she said, softly. "I guess you didn't."

"You're damn right I didn't, Carter. If you can't handle command--"

She heard someone enter his office, faintly. Tears stung behind her closed eyelids.

"Gotta go, Carter."

He hung up without saying goodbye. Sam held the phone until the dial tone stopped.

Jack sat in his truck and watched Sam's house for any signs that she might be seriously depressed or crying or anything. He did this more than he would ever admit to anyone, even if the truth was the only thing keeping him from certain death.

There was no way that anyone would understand that his weekly- okay, twice-weekly – drive-by-Sam's-house routine wasn't somehow indicative of some sort of mushy feeling on his part. She was his subordinate, and he was a good leader. This was what good leaders did, sit outside houses. It was probably in The Art of War.

It wasn't like he sat there for hours or anything. He'd just park, make sure the lights were on and no one was trying to break in, and then head home. Carter was a single girl. Single girls had to be careful, but try telling Carter that. It was just easier to keep quiet about it, and make sure she was okay.

Jack slumped in his seat. He was pretty sure there was something kind of dysfunctional about how he liked to park outside Sam's house, and yet wasn't able to tell her that he was upset about Daniel, too.

He had never claimed to be well-adjusted. This was yet another reason he and Carter would never work out. She should be with someone who could talk about their feelings and stuff like that. Jack didn't like to talk about his feelings. Jack liked to open up a beer and burn something in the back yard.

He tensed. The front door opened, and Carter stepped out. She walked to her mailbox and put a letter in it, then looked—

Carter was looking in his direction. This was bad.

What was even worse was that Carter was now walking toward him.

And knocking on the window.

"Hello, Carter," he said, rolling down the window. "What's up?"

She gave him a hard look.

"Sir, you're parked outside my house."

"Yup. So I am."

"Is there a reason you're parked outside my house, sir?"

"Oh, you know. I just like to do a lap of my subordinates before bed."

Shit. That didn't come out right. Also, Carter was now looking at him like she wanted to slam his fingers in a door, which was just plain bad.

He fiddled with his keychain, hoping Carter would take the lead in this conversation. She was good like that.

"Sir," Carter said, but not in a friendly way, "are you checking up on me?"

"Might be," Jack said. "Do you need checking up on?"

He risked a look at her. Carter didn't look so much mad as just kind of fucked up. That was bad. Ask his ex-wife: Jack O'Neill was pretty awful with upset women. If they gave out prizes, he'd have several.

"I don't know," she said. And met his eyes.

"I'm coming in," Jack said.

"Okay," Carter said, without hesitation.

fin


End file.
